RP safety campaign presented at World Conference

RP safety campaign presented at World Conference

LONDON - Filipino safety campaigners joined public health practitioners from around the globe to discuss various issues at the 2010 World Safety Conference in England.

Hundreds of safety professionals gathered at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London to tackle local and international safety issues relating to motorists, hospital patients, pedestrians, vulnerable children, alcohol abuse, natural disasters, and the workforce, to name a few.

The conference featured the International Safety Media Awards 2010, a series of media presentations using film, print and audio platforms to deliver important messages promoting safety behavior.

Among the selection was a Filipino educational video dealing with road safety in the Philippines, an initiative by Bacolod-based charity group Project CARES (Community Activities Reaching to Everyone Thru Services).

The video, entitled ‘Street Smart Road Traffic Safety: Prevention Thru Education’, was produced in 2004 with the help of creative students from De La Salle Bacolod City, and is dedicated to all victims of road accidents.

“The message is very heartfelt and comes across really clearly--the issues, the problems and some solutions. It’s also entertaining, which is helpful in the media. If it’s not entertaining, you’ll lose the interest of viewers,” said Marcia Howell, chairperson of the International Safety Media Awards 2010.

She continued: “It’s an opportunity for us to be able to show something that probably wouldn’t get as much airtime and raise the issue and raise awareness to help the road safety issues in the Philippines.”

The low-budget video, available online through Facebook and YouTube, explores various issues affecting road safety, from road signs and driving licenses to speed limits and pedestrian crossings.

Led by its chairperson, May Altarejos-Cueva, whose own brother died in a car crash in 1995, Project CARES celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and continues its relentless campaign for road safety in the Philippines.

“Nowadays, there are so many platforms for getting your message across and they all involve the media, whether it’s online or traditional media such as radio and television. It’s a very effective tool in sending the message out that we have to be conscious of road safety and that we have to follow regulation,” explained Theresa Dizon de Vega, Minister and Consul General at the Philippine Embassy in London, who presented the video at the conference.

She added: “We have various national laws and local legislation covering road safety. But it also boils down to how well we implement these laws, and with advocacies like Project CARES, hopefully we’ll have a more active public and private partnership in promoting road safety and ensuring that less lives are lost, and if possible, no lives are lost because of road accidents.”

Apart from the road safety video, a series of posters and talks from Safe Kids Philippines was also included in the program, highlighting the various initiatives and case studies completed by the group.

Theresa Perez, Executive Director of Safety Kids Philippines, explained: “What I’m doing here is presenting some work that we’ve done in the Philippines and highlighting it so that other people can know what we're doing for injury prevention. For example, we need to look into unintentional injuries. People do not know that it is the number one killer in the Philippines of children aged between one and 14 years old. We have to start being aware of this, and do something about it.”

Other Filipino safety campaigners at the conference included Jonathan Guevarra from the Department of Health and Promotion at the University of the Philippines Manila, and Daniel Saique, who delivered a talk on preventing sexual violence through education and legislation.